


Blake's Garden in Ruins

by Kiiratam



Series: Bees in Bed [14]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Minific
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22208413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: All is not well in Blake's favorite dreamscape...Takes place between Volumes 4 & 5. (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: Bees in Bed [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1482350
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	Blake's Garden in Ruins

_Why wasn't it working?!_

  
Blake seized the top of the beehive, and delicately - so delicately, forcing her hands to stop shaking - put it back where it was supposed to be. It was a level cut, it should just-

  
The whole hive collapsed.

  
She just stared at it. The first time, she'd cried and cursed. But now-

  
There were more important things she could be doing. Blake knew that. What was the point in trying to rebuild when the fires were still blazing?

  
Blake looked around what was, faintly, recognizable as her garden. It was her fault. All of this was her fault. She'd carved gates through the tall basalt walls, let other people in, to help her make new beautiful things. It had even seemed to be working. A cluster of four martial statues there, a roof to weave under (or really, to pine under), a bower draped in violets.

  
And then, what always happened. Grimm. Grimm with weapons and fire. Her old pack. Blake had opened her walls, and her scent had been caught by a traitorous wind.

  
The green growing things were gone, and all that was left was fire, dancing in a parody of life. She'd tried to extinguish them, hauling buckets from the fountain, trying to drown the blazing mockeries of what she'd loved.

  
The fountain was dry now. Even the stupid **bucket** was on fire, now.

  
Blake reached for her shovel. She'd managed to dig a firebreak around her hive and there was no **point** to it, the sweat and pain and broken blisters on her hands, because she couldn't even manage to fix it.

  
Coughing on smoke, she leaned on her shovel. Her hand slipped, and she looked with dull surprise at the splinters that had been driven into her hand.

  
_Of course._

  
Looking at her hand, she sat down, shoulders slumped, letting her shovel fall.

  
It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

  
The bees - no, yees - had probably gotten out. Blake hadn't found any dead ones, at least. They would have smelled the smoke, seen the fire. They could find fresh fields of clover, and lovely flowers. Far, far away. Away from these fields of ash and ruin.

  
Away from her.

  
In her fatigue, a shudder wracked Blake. She squeezed her hands shut, trying to-

  
She rasped out in pain, opening her hand, looking at the splinters that she'd managed to drive deeper.

  
_My fault. All my fault. Even when I try to make it better, it just gets worse and worse and-_

* * *

  
Blake woke up to sobbing. She wondered who was crying, and, as she snapped to wakefulness, realized that it was her.

  
It was just so... disconnected. Distant. Like she was playing a game, and watching her avatar go through an overly-long animation. She tried to make herself stop crying, telling herself that there was no reason.

  
But there was. Blake had so _many_ reasons, and as they started playing across the back of her mind, she found herself back inside herself. And that disconnection she'd felt, that temptation to just shut herself off, stop feeling, stop caring - it was just the latest reason to cry. It wouldn't be the first time she'd disconnected. But - 

  
\- it had scared her then, too. Brick by brick, forcing herself not to care about anyone else, because if she did, then she wouldn't be able to function. To do what Needed To Be Done. What Adam wanted.

  
But it had been a blessing, almost.

  
Blake had built her walls, and stood atop them, and gotten her first breath of fresh air, her first glimpse of starlight, and she realized that the walls kept Adam out.

  
And that she didn't care about _him_.

  
Safe in her walls, she'd remembered everything she'd thrown away, everything she'd given up, for the _privilege_ of hurting people, letting Adam hurt her.

  
So she'd made her plans, and escaped.

  
Running away again.

  
But not from herself. 

  
_I can run away from so much. I have, already. Even if I told myself that I wasn't running away from Beacon, from RWBY, from Yang. I did. I know I did._

  
Curling herself into a tight ball around her pillow, Blake let more sobs escape from her chest.

  
_I won't run away from myself. Even if it hurts. Why run away to live another day, if I'm not even me?_

  
_I already threw my bow away. No more hiding who I am. What I am._

  
_I've got all this practice running away from everything. I need to remember how to run towards things. Even if I'm scared. What was that mnemonic Yang had, when she was trying to teach me how to use Ember Celica? ...ABC. Always Be Closing. Get within their guard, force them back, make them adjust to you._

  
_Just... words, not punches. For now._

  
_Sun will be happy, at least. Not that it takes much. But following me in a charge at the White Fang? He'll love it._

  
_And Ilia... it's been so long. But... we were friends. As much as Adam let me have friends. I just need to talk to her. Help her see clearly again._

  
Blake found that she wasn't crying anymore. She had a plan. ...Or, an intention, at least. Turning it into a plan could wait until tomorrow.

  
She looked out her window at the night sky, and closed her eyes again, trying to pull the starlight back with her. Blake drifted off again.

* * *

  
Blowing out a breath, Blake started pulling splinters out of her hand.

  
Once she could hold the shovel again, she could start throwing dirt on the fires. And after that - ash could be could good for soil.

  
Clearing the gates, too. Many hands made light work.

  
Wincing, Blake pulled another splinter out. One step at a time.


End file.
